


Ashen, Bloodstained

by bethis



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Brief Gore, Gen, I mean, Poetic Descriptions of Violence, Prose Poem, for all that it is artsy, it is still technically a FE fic, it's mostly PG but i use the word "entrails" once, non-graphic depictions of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethis/pseuds/bethis
Summary: On the Ashen Demon, and on their wars.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Ashen, Bloodstained

Before all of this, before the wars, she’d had a tether. A father, a group of soldiers: a home to return to, a place to be safe from the demons that haunt the plains. And then… well, then he died, and his soldiers left; always his, never hers. She saw that now. 

And then came the first war. A short, bloody thing; a violent struggle with the corrupt Church and its mad or blind allies, a war to remake the continent in a conflagration of flame. Her students stood with her; her soldiers now, not his, never his. And before them fell legions of the enemy, staining them all irrecoverably in blood and gore. Death, doom, and sorrow; that was her war. And as she stepped out onto the field one last time, standing against that vast dragon and its toy soldiers, she found that she had made of it a new home.

Soon was the second. A vile and difficult (and no less bloody) conflict, deep below the earth, retaking the continent for those of the surface once and for all. Her whip-blade hummed through the claustrophobic confines of their cities, spraying blood and gore across the walls, and she smiled, ever so slightly: for she was home. As those around her struggled and died for the right to live, she danced across the stone floor, through halls and temples, barracks and throne rooms, and sprayed their blood and bared their entrails because she was home. She was home; oh, how she’d missed the feeling!

Of course, all good wars end quickly, and once again she was left bereft. Sitting in her room, her war room, of the maps and the plotting and planning and preparation to end lives, she found that she did not particularly care for this new world she had forged. It was kinder, yes; it was peaceful, yes. But had it a place for her, a woman whose only true home now was on the battlefield, fighting and killing and dancing through the spray of blood and gore?

And thus did she disappear from her great room, her vast city, e’en the new world that she had forged with the death of her foes. But it is said that the Ashen Demon yet walks from the northern plains to the southern bogs, drenched in blood with whip-sword in hand, looking for the opportunity to make it sing once more. It is said that those few who manage to track her down and convinced her to contract for them find that all their problems disappear quickly and violently, whether they be a pack of bandits or a band of trained knights.

And it is said that someday in the far future, when the world has once again become a place of strife, she will walk those blood-soaked fields again, dancing over the corpses of her slain foes, and only then will she find peace. For she is Byleth, the Ashen Demon of Fódlan, whose only home now is war.

**Author's Note:**

> I was just vibing at 2 am one day, and this came out.
> 
> This is my first fic in AO3; any and all comments are appreciated!


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